


and our time is not infinite

by el_em_en_oh_pee



Series: it's just like we were meant to be [3]
Category: Glee
Genre: (Kurt/Sam mostly), (Santana/Brittany and Rachel/Finn), Background Relationships, Communication, F/F, First Kiss, Misunderstandings, Past Relationship(s), Sequel, Talking, packing up kurt's dorm room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21780277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_em_en_oh_pee/pseuds/el_em_en_oh_pee
Summary: Santana has a mental rolodex of the hot girls she sees every day in New York. Or at least shewould, if Rachel Berry didn't have the irritating ability to take up every single space.
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Santana Lopez
Series: it's just like we were meant to be [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/22194
Comments: 1
Kudos: 72





	and our time is not infinite

**Author's Note:**

> this series: "surprise_bitch.gif"
> 
> it's almost 2020, i haven't watched a single episode of glee in at least five years, time is a flat fucking circle. but. i got a comment on the first fic in this series the other day and decided i HAD to write at least part of the santana-pov companion i planned on seven years ago. this is a timestamp and alternate pov during the last few scenes of [got me singing melodies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/371040), but if you're not interested in reading it, ~~here's what you missed on Glee!~~ the context is as follows: 
> 
> Santana goes to Columbia, Rachel and Kurt are at NYADA, Rachel and Finn broke up just before spring break but Santana has been having obvious feelings about Rachel for longer than that. Burt breaks his leg right before NYADA finals week, so Kurt goes home to help take care of him, leaving Santana and Rachel to pack up his dorm room.

“I’m so worried about Mr. Hummel,” Rachel says, somehow managing to wring her hands and fold one of Kurt’s fancy slinky-fabric shirts at the same time.

She’s folding it absolutely abysmally. Santana is pretty sure there’s a difference between helping a friend pack up his dorm room because his dad broke a leg and mangling said friend’s clothes because you don’t understand how to handle anything that isn’t a poly blend fabric.

Jesus. Hummel’s rambling about fabric this and stitching that all semester has rubbed off on her. Santana’s going to need to anesthetize her brain and evacuate all knowledge of Kurt’s clothing obsession to free up some space so she can add to the mental rolodex of hot girls she sees every day in Manhattan.

“He broke his leg, Rachel, I doubt he’s going to die from it.”

Rachel gives her a dirty look. “He _uses his leg to work_ , Santana,” she says, putting a hand on her hip and tossing her hair.

Her hair, which she’s changed since high school. It’s looser now, and longer. An illusion - she’s as tightly-wound and high-strung as ever. 

Santana blinks. Rachel has also been taking up space that she’d prefer to allocate to that mental rolodex. The purpose of cataloging every hot woman she comes across is so she can work out a system of what to look for when she’s trying to hook up with someone at a party. The purpose isn’t to dedicate half the slots to the way Rachel’s eyelashes fall across her cheek when she’s concentrating on a book, or the way Rachel twists her mouth when she’s upset and trying not to show it. The way her eyes light up when she’s excited about something. The hangnail on her right thumb that she chews on when she thinks no one is looking.

Santana isn’t supposed to be _looking_. She made a rule with herself, when she and Britt broke up: no one else from high school. The world is wide and there are so many women in it. So many women who aren’t straight girls psychotically obsessed with theater and singing. 

So she rolls her eyes. “Give me that shirt,” she says. “You’re going to wrinkle it and then Kurt will _really_ have something to be upset about.”

“I’m doing _fine_ ,” Rachel snaps, but she passes the shirt over anyway.

“You’re really not,” Santana says, trying to soften her tone a little so that Rachel knows that she’s criticizing, but like, not in as mean a way as she usually does. “Why don’t you tackle his shoes?”

“I do have a final performance to get to tonight,” Rachel says, archly, and Santana lets out a chuckle.

“I’ll help you if it takes you more than five hours.”

They work in silence for a few minutes, until Rachel says, “So why did you end up staying in town anyway? You were done like two weeks ago.”

Santana doesn’t feel the need to get into all the drama with her dad’s new girlfriend with Rachel, so she just shrugs. “Lima,” she says, holding a hand up, parallel to her waist, and wiggling it. She moves her other hand to her forehead and wiggles it, too. ”New York. You know?”

Rachel sighs. “I know,” she says. “I love my dads, and I want to see friends, but it’s just so much more exciting here. Too expensive outside of dorms, though.”

Santana’s been crashing in the apartment of a friend from Columbia since she was kicked out of her dorm at the end of her semester. She’s pretty sure she’s close to overstaying her welcome, but she’s holding out as long as she can. 

She’s pretty sure her dad would front her the price of an apartment, but she doesn’t want to go through the mental gymnastics of trying to figure out if he’d be paying because she wants to be in New York or paying because his girlfriend doesn’t want a girl four years younger than her to be staying in their house, so she hasn’t asked. “I’ll head back to Lima eventually,” she says. “I guess it’d be cool, seeing everyone again.”

“You like the glee club,” Rachel says, sing-songy, and grinning, and ignores when Santana rolls her eyes at her. “I do think it’ll be good to see everyone again.”

There’s something in her voice. Something weird. Santana squints at her. “How are things with Hudson?”

Rachel sighs. “I want to know if Finn and I can be friends,” she admits. “I don’t think we can, but he was - special to me, for so long.”

“Finn ain’t shit,” Santana says. “You know that, right? I wouldn’t be too worried if you can’t be friends.”

“He _is_ my best friend’s brother,” Rachel points out. “It’s not like I can avoid him. It’ll be best if we’re, you know. Able to get along.”

That stings, a little, but Santana doesn’t say anything. There’s no reason that a year out of high school would make Rachel think of her as a best friend, too. And Santana really should do her best to avoid getting soppy in her old age. It ruins her brand. So she shrugs. “I guess,” she says.

Rachel gives her a penetrating sort of look. “Do you think you and Brittany are going to pick up where you left off?”

“God no,” Santana says, rolling her eyes. Sometimes she still thinks about it, honestly - Britt is so familiar, so comfortable - feels like home, in a way, and it’s nice. But that’s not what Santana craves, and it’s not what Brittany says she wants, either. “I likes a warm body under mine at night, and I love Britt, but there’s absolutely no way. What’s done is done.” She twists her mouth to the side and thinks of the way Rachel’s hands turn red in the cold has taken up approximately half of her mental rolodex of hot Manhattan girls, even though cold-red hands aren’t even attractive. Mostly as a reminder to herself, she adds, “Everyone from high school still dating each other is way too incestuous, anyway. I wouldn’t want to contribute to that.”

“Oh,” Rachel says, and looks down at her hands. She shoves a few more pairs of Kurt’s shoes into a box. “I see.”

“Like, no shade to Kurt and Sam or Mike and Tina or any of ‘em,” Santana says, more defensively than is probably necessary. “There’s just so many other people out there. People who I haven’t seen in diapers or whatever. People who weren’t there when I was still so -”

Cruel, she doesn’t say, even though she thinks it. She’s never going to stop being thorny, but the counselor at Columbia she’s been secretly seeing has helped her work through a _lot_ of internalized homophobia and a lot of rage she’s spent years feeling toward her father and Coach and Scheuster and Finn and Quinn and - well. A lot of people. She doesn’t have to hurt others to recalibrate and process the hurt she feels anymore, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t worried that she could fall back into that pattern easily, given the right circumstances.

The dimple in Rachel’s knee that flashes every time she wears one of those dreadful skirt-and-sock combinations is in Santana’s mental rolodex, replacing the gorgeous Somalian girl who sat next to Santana in their econ lecture all last semester. Santana is so used to being cruel to Rachel after all those years at McKinley, but she’s had an academic year’s worth of practice of getting along with Rachel in New York, too, so she’s not certain Rachel would get her back into her rut. If Rachel were gay, which she’s not, so it’s all moot anyway. 

“So what?” Rachel asks. “Bitchy?”

Santana snorts. “Yeah,” she says. “Bitchy. I’m pretty sure anyone from high school would get too hung up on that to date me anyway, besides Puckerman - which, ew - or Britt - which, not anymore. So.” She shrugs.

Rachel blinks and says something under her breath, then clears her throat. “I see.” She licks her lips. “So you think dating pools including people from Lima or McKinley are dumb.”

Santana tries to work out who Rachel might be talking about. “I mean,” she says, at length. “If you want to go back to dating Puckerman, I won’t judge.” At Rachel’s incredulous look, she laughs. “I mean, I will, and loudly. But I’d support you.”

“I wouldn’t date Noah anyway,” Rachel says, rolling her eyes. 

“Well, I can’t picture you dating Artie,” Santana says. “Mike is taken. Blaine is gay. You and Finn are done-zo. Kurt and Sam are taken. Who else is there?”

Rachel just blinks at her, and Santana’s world realigns.

“Wait,” Santana says. “Do you mean to tell me that you’re trading footlongs - wait.” She shakes her head. “Finn. Right. Mini cocktail weenies, then - for fish tacos?”

Rachel snorts, and looks surprised by it. “Rude,” she says, and makes an abortive gesture, like she was going to elbow Santana but thought better of it. “Anyway, I’m vegan. You _know_ I’m vegan.”

“Veganism is stupid so I’ve elected to ignore it,” says Santana, and squints. “Is it Quinn? You’ve always had that weird love-hate thing with Quinn.”

“It’s not Quinn,” Rachel says, which Santana chooses to take as an indicator that it _is_ a girl.

“Okay, because if it were Quinn, I think you’d have a shot,” Santana says. “There’s no way someone _that_ repressed is totally straight.”

“Santana,” Rachel says. This time she does reach out. Puts a hand on Santana’s forearm, where it rests, heat radiating from her touch. 

_Great_ , Santana thinks. _Another spot on the rolodex gone_. “Yeah?”

“It’s not Quinn,” Rachel says, seriously. And then she takes her hand away. 

The air conditioning in Kurt’s dorm is on the fritz, swampy Manhattan summer air working its way inside, but Santana’s arms pepper over in goosebumps when Rachel pulls back, anyway. She hugs them close to her, crossed over her stomach. “Then who?”

Rachel looks Santana over, up and down, and then shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. 

“Look, Berry, I promise not to mock,” Santana says. She shakes herself, pushes herself to a stand, and forces herself to walk over to Kurt’s closet. She has _no_ idea how he managed to squeeze _that_ many things into such a small space, but she has her work cut out for her here. She pulls out his down winter coat and tries to pack it down into a small enough square that it will fit into the nearly-full bin she’s working with. “Even if it’s Coach Sylvester.”

Rachel mimes vomiting, dramatically, for effect, then says, “Come on, Santana, I already know your stance on dating people from McKinley. So it doesn’t matter.”

“But I told you that it’s fine if _you_ do it- oh.” Santana drops the coat, and it expands - exponentially, it seems- all over the ground.

“Look, I don’t want things to be weird,” Rachel says, quickly, pushing shoes off her lap and standing up. They clatter to the floor; the sound is distant compared to the ringing in Santana’s ears. “You’ve been - great, actually, since we got to New York. I like that we’re friends now. It’s nice. I don’t want things to get weird.”

“It’s me?” Santana asks.

“You know, I’ve never thought of you as anything less than overconfident to a fault,” Rachel says, with a half-smile. “Egotistical, one might even say. I’m surprised you didn’t guess you first.”

“Yeah, but - it’s me,” Santana says. “And it’s you.”

“And here I was thinking that could be a great combination,” Rachel says. She takes a half-step closer. “Especially now that we’re both out of Ohio and growing up and better people, I think. I mean, obviously, I’ll respect your desires to avoid partners from McKinley now that I know you have them. But I wouldn’t want to like, lie to you. I want our friendship to be honest.”

Santana blinks. She’s surprised, and she’s a little angry with herself for being surprised. She’s been intrigued by Rachel for _so_ long. Especially now that they’re both out of Ohio, and Santana’s been working on letting herself mellow out, and Rachel has clearly been working on growing comfortable in her own skin. They’re not a disaster waiting to happen like they probably would have been in high school, Santana is pretty sure. A controlled burn, not a forest fire. “Fuck that,” she says.

“Oh,” Rachel says, an ashen cast falling over her face. She takes a step back; Santana sways forward. “I - okay. If you don’t want to be friends anym-”

“Rachel,” Santana says, reaching out. She puts her hand on Rachel’s shoulder and lets it rest there, heavy, steadying. She takes a step forward, and another, until she draws up directly in front of Rachel. “I meant fuck what I said about people from high school. I thought you were straight when I said that.”

“You thought I was -” Rachel breaks off, laughs. “After I was so jealous of that girl you were seeing before spring break?”

“Casey looked like you,” Santana says, defensively, and then smiles when Rachel blushes. 

“So I can assume you’re - interested, also.”

“Yeah, Rachel, you can assume that I’m interested also,” Santana says. Carefully, like it matters - because it matters - she puts a hand at Rachel’s waist. 

“So does that mean we’re -” Rachel starts, but before she can finish her sentence, Santana leans in and kisses her, slow and deep. 

Rachel’s wearing a tinted medicinal chapstick and Santana’s wearing a sticky lipgloss, but the feeling of both fade away quickly as Rachel opens up to the kiss, melting into it in a way that, frankly, has Santana wanting to swoon.

Rachel pulls back before Santana can feel _too_ weak at the knees, though. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she says, dazedly, and then grins. Catching Santana’s hand in hers, she walks backward until she bumps up against Kurt’s bed.

Kurt’s bed, which he won’t be sleeping in again. So surely giving it a proper farewell won’t hurt. “How long did you say you have before your performance final tonight?” she asks, cocking an eyebrow.

“Oh,” says Rachel, grin widening. “Enough.”

“Hours?” Santana asks, stepping between Rachel’s legs and running a hand through Rachel’s hair until she’s cradling the back of Rachel’s head - the better to control the next kiss, obviously. 

“I’ll set an alarm,” Rachel promises, and leans up for another kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "if there's such a thing as love" by the magnetic fields. 
> 
> tumblr and twitter both @ dulosis - come say hi!


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